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Good morning! Don’t expect a warm front, but the snows of Tuesday are gone. Gov. Andrew Cuomo will continue his budget road tour with an appearance at SUNY Oswego. Cabinet members will Cuomovangelize in Ithaca and Melville. Good-government groups will hold a press conference outside New York’s City Hall and at the Capitol calling for changes to reduce public corruption. There will also be a press conference on mercury. Comptroller Tom DiNapoli is in Corning today. This afternoon, Hudson Valley Community College will host a conference on nanotechnology. Here are this morning’s headlines…

The mayor and deputy mayor of Spring Valley were also charged in the sting. Arrests were made just after dawn on Tuesday. (Journal News)

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara was not amused: “Today is another sad and disappointing day for every New Yorker who hasn’t yet given up on the dream of honest government. The charges we unseal today demonstrate, once again, that a show-me-the-money culture seems to pervade every level of New York government.” (NYP)

“Raw political ambition gave birth to the I.D.C., and raw political ambition will likely lead to its demise,” said Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a Brooklyn Democrat and former assemblyman. “It’s a mind-set problem that puts politics over policy.” (NYT)

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said the allegations are “very troubling,” and said he has done a lot to fight corruption: “I spent more time working on political reform and political corruption than probably any attorney general in modern political history. So I take it very seriously and they are serious allegations.” (WSJ)

Michael Goodwin: Promises, promises. Instead of delivering, Cuomo pulled his punches, and New Yorkers got neither strong ethics nor a Moreland Act.//One result is the breathtaking criminal case against Sen. Malcolm Smith and five others in a plot as wild as anything Boss Tweed pulled off. The alleged scams embody the spirit of a later Tammany boss, George Washington Plunkitt, who explained his fortune by saying, “I seen my opportunities and I took ’em.” (NYP)

The arrests will impact the New York City mayoral race. While Smith wasn’t generally discussed as a serious candidate, Tabone was an ally of John Catsimatidis, a super market mogul running as a Republican. He has been suspended from this day job working for Catsimatidis’ company. (NYP)

The New York Post: No one should be surprised to find Malcolm in the muddle: This arrest caps a rotten career for Smith, once the highest-ranking black legislator in state history.//Indeed, Smith has been linked to so many dubious schemes the FBI must have had an entire branch on his tail: Bid-rigging for the Aqueduct racino. Co-founding a Katrina charity that saw nearly $30,000 vanish. Diverting campaign funds for lavish personal trips and meals. Even opening (and then ruining) a Queens charter school in what appears to be a plot to boost home sales for a developer and big-time donor. (NYP)

The Times Union:It doesn’t have to be this way. So what will the Legislature do to fix such a graft-ridden political culture?//Good government activists are going around the state this week holding rallies and launching a TV ad blitz to make the ever more urgent case for getting the corrupting influence of money out of politics. Much as we champion their cause, we can’t help but note that they’ve been upstaged in their advocacy. Exhibit A for tougher campaign finance laws, suddenly, is Malcolm Smith — now not just a state senator, but a criminal defendant.//How much longer can state legislators resist the relentless push for public campaign financing? What better evidence can there be of the need for such reform than this case, in which one of their own, the onetime Senate president and Democratic leader, stands accused of trying to bribe Republican leaders to get a place on the ballot as a GOP candidate for mayor of New York City? (TU)

The Journal News: The arrests are another black eye on politics and governance in all of New York. (Journal News)

Schenectady County GOP Chair Jim Buhrmaster tells Marv Cermak that George Amedore is going to make another run for the state Senate. (TU)

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Capitol Confidential gathers the best coverage of New York politics and puts it all together. Each section - Capitol, The State Worker, New York on the Potomac, and Voices - represents a unique facet of the political scene. The Capitol section features coverage from the Times Union Capitol bureau. The State Worker is dedicated to state worker issues. New York on the Potomac offers news of interest to New Yorkers from Washington. And Voices features the best of everything else, pointing you to columnists and bloggers from across the Web.